exciting if they empower themselves with greater influencemaking friends with your today as you will...

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One of my core beliefs is that anyone can create a working life experience that is an exciting adventure – if they empower themselves with greater influence.

And part of my exciting adventure is making this a reality for others, regardless of their starting point. Some begin at breaking point. Others would be considered successful already.

What unites us all is the strong desire for a better, more rewarding and fulfilling working life. One that is enjoyable, challenging and fun.

Why?

Why not?

To help drive this vision forward, I’ve created The Blueprint for an Exciting Adventure at Work.

Copyright © 2018 The Gautrey Group. All Rights Reserved www.learntoinfluence.com

Table of Contents

Blueprint Overview .................................................................................................................................... 3

Making an Emotional Commitment to Your Adventure ................................................................................ 5

Blueprint Part One ...............................................................................................................................................5

Acknowledge .......................................................................................................................................................5

Celebrate .............................................................................................................................................................6

Motivate ..............................................................................................................................................................6

Commit ................................................................................................................................................................7

Making Friends with Your Today ................................................................................................................. 8

Blueprint Part Two: Today ...................................................................................................................................8

Framing ...............................................................................................................................................................8

Assumptions ........................................................................................................................................................9

Labelling ........................................................................................................................................................... 11

Getting to Know Your Tomorrow .............................................................................................................. 12

Blueprint Part Two: Tomorrow ......................................................................................................................... 12

Exercise 1: Histories .......................................................................................................................................... 13

Exercise 2: Activities ......................................................................................................................................... 14

Exercise 3: Exciting Days ................................................................................................................................... 14

Exercise 4: 100th Birthday ................................................................................................................................. 14

Exercise 5 .......................................................................................................................................................... 15

Okay, Time to Get Moving ........................................................................................................................ 15

Blueprint Part Three: Getting Moving .............................................................................................................. 16

Exercise 1: Your Goal ........................................................................................................................................ 17

Exercise 2: Your Strategy .................................................................................................................................. 17

Exercise 3: Your Plan......................................................................................................................................... 18

Exercise 4: Your Behaviours .............................................................................................................................. 18

Exercise 5: Your Action ..................................................................................................................................... 19

Becoming a Role Model ............................................................................................................................ 19

Blueprint Part Four: Aspiration......................................................................................................................... 19

Being an Impressive Individual ......................................................................................................................... 21


Blueprint Overview Here is a graphical representation of the whole blueprint:

Part One: Audit where you are right now. Acknowledge the things about your work that are uncomfortable, and you wish were different. Celebrate all the things that are great about work at the moment, that you want to retain or develop further. Then, motivate yourself and make a strong emotional commitment to dramatically improving the quality and adventure of your work. This may be your current job or setting your sights on different work.

The important point here, is making a significant emotional decision to work hard to create work as an exciting adventure.

Part Two: This is where the adventure can begin. After making a strong emotional commitment, now is the time to start playing. And yes, I do mean playing. This is a serious business, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a hard slog. In this part you make friends with your current reality, re-interpreting what is happening and beginning to adjust your current experience. You can take great strides towards an exciting adventure just by changing your mind about today.


When you can begin to look forward, from a resourceful state, you can start designing what an even better adventure might look like, feel like, be like.

Part Three: Now some of the clarity is emerging you can begin to lay out the strategy that needs to be executed to propel you towards the adventure. It is also time to consider what behaviours would match with the adventure you envisage. What sort of person do you need to become, and what will you be doing and saying if you are to step into the future?

And it is time to get practical. What actions to you need to take to more forward? This may be more research or testing out the feasibility of different options, or you may be ready to create a simple strategy to move swiftly towards your goal.

Regardless, action needs to be taken. This is not a spectator sport, this is your life we are talking about, your future.

Part Four: The sooner you can get here the better. And, you can get here from the beginning if that doesn’t sound too strange.

The point is that the quickest way to begin to experience your work as an exciting adventure, is to become a role model of someone who is pursuing an exciting adventure. You can do this right away if you think of it as a journey from here to there, with adventure all the way.

Creating an exciting life at work is not a linear process, it is actually an holistic way of life. Instead of viewing this as a step-by-step process, start to live all of the parts at the same time. If you’re not quite with me yet, just park your reservations and keep reading – humour me. All will become clear as we move through the detail in the pages that follow.


Making an Emotional Commitment to Your Adventure If you are interested in creating or re-creating your work as an exciting adventure, you must agree with me that this is a fantastic experience to shoot for.

In my world, I don’t believe in wishful thinking. Hard work, tenacity and enjoyment all go hand-in-hand. Action needs to take place to achieve your vision.

Maybe you are stuck in a job you love, but you hate the politics around it, or the idiots you have to work with. Alternatively, you could be just starting out in your career, or committed to moving to a new career.

Regardless, you need a firm foundation that you can depend on, and that foundation requires maturity and awareness, hence part one of the Exciting Adventure!

And as you read, make sure to remember that all of this is intended to provoke you to action.

Blueprint Part One Audit where you are right now. Acknowledge the things about your work that are uncomfortable, and you wish were different. Celebrate all the things that are great about work at the moment, that you want to retain or develop further.

Then, motivate yourself and make a strong emotional commitment to dramatically improving the quality and adventure of your work. This may be your current job or setting your sights on different work.

The important point here, is making a significant decision to work hard to create work as an exciting adventure.

Acknowledge

What exactly do you find uncomfortable or distasteful about work at the moment?

Notice that I am using the word acknowledge rather than accept. Many authors are talking about acceptance these days, but for me, this implies that it is something here to stay, recognising it as a part of your future. In my book, no, that is not acceptable!


What I would like you to do instead is simply to recognise (as dispassionately as you can) that there are things currently in your working life that you would prefer were not present. That is all. It is unwise to ignore or try to push these things out of sight because they have a nasty habit of coming back to bite you.

In the next part we will start to deal with these less favourable aspects. Now, simply note them down as objectively as you can.

Celebrate

What do you find really enjoyable about your work at the moment?

Most people when I start to work with them have lost sight of all the positives. That is natural for a great many people, but not something that is particularly helpful.

Now you have noted down the less favourable things (you have haven’t you?), audit all the great things in your working life. Recall the excitement, the joy, that creeps into your days. The moments that fill you up, stimulating you, stretching you.

Again, note all of these things down, only this time write a sentence or two about how you feel when you think of them.

Actually, this is a list worth keeping handy so you can refer to it from time-to-time during the day, recalling the positive, bringing balance back into your working life.

Motivate

Come on, if your work becomes an exciting adventure:

• What would it feel like to be living this adventure? • What benefits would you expect to receive?

At this stage, the details are perhaps a little sketchy, but right now, try to imagine what it would be like to be living your work as an exciting adventure. What would you gain from feeling like this every day. Waking up, excited to get started. Looking forward to the meetings, the cut ad thrust of work. Wouldn’t it be great to feel that energy and enthusiasm coursing through your veins?


Again, your notebook would be handy here. I know you know all about motivation, which means that you also know why it is so vitally important to invest plenty of time living with this for a little while, noting down all the ideas that come to mind.

Commit

Is this something you REALLY want?

Are you prepared to go “all in” to realise this in your life?

If so, meditate on your decision. Commit to yourself to move heaven and earth to do this. Pump yourself up. Demand this of yourself. Vow to be relentless in your pursuit of an exciting adventure. Whip up your emotions, get excited, get angry. Bring forth the emotions that move you the most.

You deserve this. Your family deserves this too – then you will be at your best as a person. Come on, make a commitment to your future!

At this stage you don’t need to clarify what your exciting adventure will be. This is a chance to take stock of your life, notice what is working for you and what is not working.

The final element here, the emotional commitment, is significant.

Making an intellectual or logical agreement with yourself is nowhere near enough. If you are to make this happen, you must put a significant amount of emotion behind your decision. This will keep you going when the temptation to waiver is strong, or the distractions begin to creep in.

In the next part of the blueprint we go deeper into the specifics of what needs to change today, how you relate to your current reality, and what you are going to aim for – your exciting adventure!


Making Friends with Your Today As you will see in a moment, this part of the Blueprint for an Exciting Adventure at Work is core. Changes you make here will, in time, be seen as the turning point for you – because it concerns the way you are relating to your work, responding to it, and starting to aspire to bigger and better things.

Which means it is worth investing some time in studying it carefully and doing the exercises I suggest.

Blueprint Part Two: Today Where the adventure can begin.

After making a strong emotional commitment, now is the time to start playing. And yes, I do mean playing. This is a serious business, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a hard slog.

In this part you make friends with your current reality, re-interpreting what is happening and beginning to adjust your current experience. You can take great strides towards an exciting adventure just by changing your mind about today.

Since coming to terms with your current reality is such an important topic, I will save the tomorrow element for later.

Before I launch into this part though, I recognise that some of you reading this may be in an extremely difficult situation. If you are in such a position, bear in mind that the purpose of this article is to help those who are facing the more ordinary unpleasant circumstances if that makes sense. So, take a look, and if you’d like to reach out to me, I may be able to provide more tailored guidance for you.

That said, let’s jump in.

To begin, reflect on your current situation at work. Write a paragraph or two to describe what is going on for you right now. Perhaps, imagine you are writing this to a friend

Framing With any experience or situation, there are multiple ways to you can look at it. These perspectives or frames are generally automatic though with awareness you can learn to re-frame anything. An important aspect of this is that the situation doesn’t change, just the way


you view it. And the way you view it, can change your and your thinking. This is where the magic can start to happen, because then the situation can begin to change rapidly.

For example, one lady was having a tough time at work. She felt like it was a nightmare, like all her worst fears crammed into each day – a living nightmare.

Once we managed to detach the emotions and begin to look more at it objectively, she started to find other ways to frame it. For instance:

• A gift from God to test her faith. • An amazing learning opportunity. • A rallying call to action to pursue a new life. • A temporary/interim position.

Each of these frames “could” be true. None of these frames “are” the truth, — until she makes it so.

Reality as we experience it is far more malleable than we realise. An important skill is to be able to connect with the frame that will give you the best potential to shift up a gear and move towards your goal. Adopting it may take some time, action will be needed, and these actions will need to turn into habit. But, none of this can happen until you first recognise that a frame might be true.

Pause a moment and return to your current situation:

• What other frames or perspectives can you dream up that “could” be useful here? • Which one offers you the greatest potential for progress? • What needs to change so that you can more easily adopt this frame? • Who could be of help here?

Now put this topic to one side. As with all the elements in this part of the blueprint, they are connected but not in a linear way. You can come back to the framing exercises regularly as you become more adept at creating the life you want.

Assumptions What I want to do now is focus on the illusory nature of what we often regard as fact. When it comes to politics in the workplace, I often quote assumptions as being the fuel that fires the conflict.

Assumptions are the most natural thing in the world. We all make them, most of the time. Indeed, we need assumptions to function because amazing those we are, the brain could not cope without these short-cuts. An assumption is a technique to economise thinking.


A good deal can change in a heartbeat when you bring your awareness onto the assumptions you are making relevant to your current situation – and realise you may have got it wrong. Here’s a quick example:

Max hated his boss. Thought he was a monster, always out to belittle everyone, make them feel stupid. In meetings, his boss seemed to delight in pulling people apart. Inhuman, cruel and unnecessary in Max’s view. He hated the thought of attending meetings with this guy, even if he wasn’t in the firing line.

After a few conversations, with the emotions safely sat on the side-lines, Max began to explore what might be driving his boss’ behaviour. The personal agenda, goals, pressures. What became apparent was that he had extremely high standards. Was demanding the best from everyone because of his passion for customer service. Max started to see that his boss cared for everyone, even though his approach was somewhat unhelpful. His heart was in the right place.

Fantasy? Not sure.

What I can say however is that Max successfully challenged his assumption that his boss was a monster, and out to trample all over everyone. He brought his focus onto the deeper drivers and was able to unlock this relationship. Suddenly a different boss began to emerge, and Max was able to work with him in a different way. Within a few months they were working as partners. Max helping his boss instead of quietly seething. He was also helping others to understand his boss and learn how to work more effectively.

What changed first? Max’s assumptions. His choice about what to believe. Then the way forward began to emerge.

You have far more choice about these matters than you realise.

So:

• What assumptions are you making? Think about the key people, situations or events that are troubling you.

• For each key assumption, what alternatives could there be? • How can you test out each assumption?

WARNING: When you go to test an alternative, you have to avoid the thought “how can I prove this alternative is false?” You already believe that right now and you will find the evidence. Instead, focus an open mind on “how can I prove this is true?” Then see what you notice.


Labelling The final topic I want to touch on relevant to making friends with today is the labels you are using. As with framing and assumptions, this can have a big impact on how you feel, and the behaviour you adopt. In effect, a label is an extreme abbreviation that explains everything (to your behaviours!).

Dr. Srikumar Rao is an author I hold in high regard. In his book Happiness at Work he writes about way we are so quick to judge a situation as good or bad, and the personal consequences that follow.

When something happens, it is impossible to tell if history will judge it to have been a good or bad event. In the moment it could seem like your whole world is being torn apart – but that may be just what you need to propel you to the next adventure.

With a calm mind, reflect on these questions:

• What good could you make out of this event? • How can you turn this towards a positive outcome? • What could you learn from this situation?

Yes, practical things need to be done when something happens. You need to allow your natural emotions to flow. Then I strongly urge you to direct your logical mind to dealing with the practicalities, and invest your emotions, and your heart, into the good.

In my experience, I cannot recall a single individual who has been made redundant who has not ended up in a far better position within a few years. Yes, a few hairy moments. Anxiety and stress in most cases. But, they all pulled through.

Similarly, have you noticed how many countries have been completely demolished by war only to emerge years later far stronger economically than the victor. Pain and suffering yes, but in the end, a positive outcome.

Now, since you have set your commitment to having an exciting adventure, let’s see what we can do to shift you up a gear from where you are right now, looking for the good and putting yourself into the most resourceful state possible to reach out for your future.

To move this along, here are some questions to reflect on over the coming days:

• In what ways is your current situation funny/fascinating/stupid/exciting? • How would you relate to your today if you didn’t mind whatsoever how it turned out? • What can you do to reduce the tension/anxiety about today? • What can you do to make today more fun?


• If it were just a game, how would you change the way you play it? Would you cheat? Would you change the rules? Can you move the goal posts?

• Come on, how are you going to make today an exciting adventure?

Woah!

Something happened for me when I wrote that last question. Did you feel it too?

Here’s the truth, if you choose it to be so.

If you can learn to have an exciting adventure at work every day, you will have acquired the skill to do this every day, no matter what is occurring. Then your challenge will be what will be the next exciting adventure.

What difference do you think that would make to the way people experience you – at an interview for instance?

Right, plenty of food for thought here.

Getting to Know Your Tomorrow Now we get to the part where you can start to play. Let your imagination run riot. Remind yourself of the things that give you the most stimulation, excitement and enjoyment (at work).

It is also the time when you will begin to realise where you want to get to.

Blueprint Part Two: Tomorrow

Where do you want to be in five years’ time?

Most people respond with either a clear positional goal or are very unclear. Those who do have a clear role in mind are making a mistake. So too are those who don’t have a clue.


The aspirant Chief This That or the Other need to be careful what they wish for. I’ve coached a great number of people who have got there only to find it wasn’t quite what they expected or wanted. Yes, the power and money are wonderful, but they were stressed, overworked and missing the fun they used to have.

Those who are drifting will tell you that so far, their career has moved forward by doing a good job, and interesting opportunities always turn up. This is great, but I feel they could have moved faster if they had a more deliberate approach. Curiously, those in this camp are talking to me because the next opportunity is a little overdue.

These people are onto something, but still missing an important point. The latest thinking on goal-setting is that the healthiest, happiest and most productive approach is to use a clear goal as a direction to stimulate the ideas about the route. Success comes when the route is so much fun that the realisation of the end goal becomes more of an option.

Hence, the third way, the way of the “career adventurer.” Someone who has decided to see the adventure in their career, have freed themselves from the need to achieve particular positions, and have latched on to the drive towards goals that empower them, stimulate them and make their life feel like it is worth living.

To be honest, this is closer to the drifter, but with the added rigour of strategy, planning and drive to accelerate the journey.

Are you signing up to be a “career adventurer?”

What you need to do is increase the clarity on what you want your tomorrow to look like.

To help with this, here are a series of exercises to get you moving. You don’t need to do them all, just pick out the ones that appear to be most suitable for you, which feel like they will move your forward.

Exercise 1: Histories To date, what has been the most interesting and exciting chapter of your career?

• What was happening? • What were you doing that made it so stimulating, exciting, fun? • Stop now and write for at least 10 minutes. Record your thoughts – and feelings – about

the experience.


Exercise 2: Activities When it comes to work (a third of most weekdays), what activities:

• Do you find most enjoyable? • Do you value the most? • Would you love to be a part of every day? • Have to be present for you to feel fulfilled? • Would indicate that your work is an exciting adventure?

Come on, you know where I am going with this! Invest a decent amount of time playing with the questions above and all the derivatives your intelligence and experience can conjure up.

Exercise 3: Exciting Days Right, now pick up that pen, grab your notebook, and imagine you are having the most exciting day. Write down:

• What would you be doing? • Who would you be doing it with? • What would you be saying to those around you? • What emotions would you be feeling?

There are many more exercises in a similar vein that I’m sure you are aware of. If they seem useful here, do them too.

Personally, I love the visualisation of an interview on your 100th birthday – what is the secret to a long and happy life? What are you most proud of?

Okay, go on then…

Exercise 4: 100th Birthday You are being interviewed by a chat show host on your 100th birthday. You’re looking fit well and happy as she ganders through her questions:

• What was the most exciting time in your career? • What did you find so rewarding about that experience? • How did you manage to achieve that? • Is there anything you wished you’d done differently? • Any tips for your great-great-grandchildren about leading an exciting life?


Now let’s get serious for a moment. I hope you spend the time playing with this. What it should do is deliver an increasing level of clarity about:

• What you find exciting about work? • What would represent an adventure at work for you?

Exercise 5: Two Questions Simple must do exercise. Write down your answers to the two questions above.

To conclude what I have to say in part two of the Blueprint, I’d like to release a little pressure that I have been deliberately building up. Although I can give you an outline, a blueprint and a process, the most important thing to remember is that it is your life. Life is a journey, and it is up to you to choose how you’d like to play it.

So, don’t get too stressed about answering all of the questions I’ve posed. Just keep coming back at regular intervals because the most important thing is that you enjoy the journey, have some fun, and get moving to the next base.

I said a while back that this is an holistic process, not a linear one. Each time you stop at one of the bases and do the exercises, you will deepen your thinking and clarity. This is natural and good, provided that it is followed by a healthy dose of action!

Okay, Time to Get Moving If you’ve got this far, my job now is to push you on to the next step because most people end up continuing to ruminate over all their ideas without landing a concrete decision about what they are going to shoot for.

True, you may not yet be at the stage that you can make a decision because you have more research to do. That’s okay but, set yourself a firm deadline by which time you will have completed pulling all the information together, so you can decide.


Blueprint Part Three: Getting Moving To get his part started, I have a few questions I’d like you to answer, as honestly as you can:

1. How would you feel if nothing changed between now and say, 6 months’ time?

2. Would you feel differently if you were leading exactly the same life in 3 years’ time?

3. Can you do me a favour? Reflect back on your emotional commitment in Part One.

4. Are you still absolutely committed to making changes?

5. If not, why not? 6. If you are, come on, we’ve got work to do!

Seriously, if you are still sitting on the fence, there must be a very good reason, so spend some time reflecting on what is holding you back.

It may well be that you still have some unanswered questions. In which case, list out what those questions are and set a deadline for getting the answers.

Naturally, this may involve consulting with friends and colleagues. This is good so long as you make sure that you can filter out their bias, so you are simply listening to what they have to say. Well-meaning friends have your best interests at heart but will not necessarily tell you what you need to hear. You know what I mean.

Now, let’s get to work.

The exercises I have for you in this part are different than in the last part because they are more linear in nature. This is because they have to build on each other. If you are unable to complete an exercise, you can progress to the next, but it is probably not worth your time. Do all that you can, including putting this down for a few weeks, to complete each exercise in turn. Fundamentally, this part requires that you can answer these three questions:

What goal are you going to strive for that will mean your work is an exciting adventure?

What strategy is most likely to get you there in the minimum amount of time?

What practical actions are you going to take over the next three months?


Exercise 1: Your Goal Reflect on your work in the last part, especially the “getting to know your tomorrow” element.

• What different goals could you settle on that would deliver the things that you have decided that you want, that represent work as an exciting adventure? These are your options, and you choose the timeframe, 1, 3, 5 or 20 years.

• Which goal is most likely to deliver what you want in terms of fulfilment? • Which goal is likely to be the easiest to achieve? • Which goal will be the most interesting and fun one to pursue? • Which goal is the most “realistic”? Yes, I hate to use this word, but play with it before

you throw caution to the wind!

And therefore:

• Which goal are you going to shoot for?

Exercise 2: Your Strategy Based on what you know now:

• What are the main routes that could take you towards your goal? • What are the pros and cons of each key route? • Which route feels the easiest? • Which route seems to be the most exciting? • Which route are you going to set out on? • What are the key staging posts, or stepping stones, on this route?

Yes, easy to write these questions. Answering them can be extremely difficult, which is why most people give up and go back to just thinking about what’s wrong about their work at the moment.

Fortunately, I know you are made of different stuff, and will demonstrate a high degree of tenacity while you root out the answers to these questions.

Even so, you are unlikely to have all the answers right now. Indeed, how could you possibly know ALL that you will need to do if you are really stretching your ambition and your goals? Many of the steps cannot come into view until you get going.

Right now, it is important that you can settle on a course for a decent period of time so that you can concentrate on action rather than more thinking.


Exercise 3: Your Plan Based on the strategy/route you have chosen:

• What do you need to achieve in the next 3 months? • What do you need to achieve in the next month? • What are you going to achieve this week? • What will you do today?

You have to keep coming back to this one. It is impossible to plan out the whole piece, because there is so much learning and fun along the route.

In effect, what I am advocating is a chunking down of the big goal into smaller goals which give a more detailed direction in the shorter term. Then you can get moving towards them and ensure you review them weekly, or more often.

Interestingly:

• Lack of action is a more heinous crime than wrong action • Any action towards a goal, even if you change your mind on the goal, is better than

inaction. • If you’ve got this far, any change of goal is going to be a minor readjustment rather than

a wholesale change. • Perfect action is only determined with hindsight.

Well, to simplify it further, once you have a pretty good idea of where you are heading, remove all the roadblocks and get busy having fun. If you learn well, feel free to adjust your destination along the way.

Exercise 4: Your Behaviours Now you have decided where you are going, and the route you are starting out on to get there, what behaviours do you need to adopt to maximise hour progress?

I’m not going to attempt to be prescriptive here. There are too many options for that. Instead, what I challenge you to do is think about the sort of behaviours you would expect to see in the person who is going to smash this goal:

• What would you notice them doing or saying? • How would they act in public, in private? • What habits would they adopt?

To put this another way, knowing what you know, and where you want to go:


1. What behaviours must you adopt day-in day-out to maximise your progress? 2. What habits must you adopt to maximise your progress? 3. What behaviours must you avoid at all costs? 4. Honestly, what habits are you going to have to replace?

Exercise 5: Your Action I will admit, there is a great deal of work that needs to be completed in this part, so make sure to take enough time to do it thoroughly, so that by the time you get here, you are comfortable to make this exercise an almost daily habit:

• What did you do yesterday that helped you towards your goal? • What did you do yesterday that hindered your progress? • What action will you take today to advance towards your exciting adventure?

Repeat this exercise for different time frames as appropriate, but never less than weekly. This is far too important for you to leave more than a week between reviews!

Okay, time to get busy!

Becoming a Role Model All those who have been working through the Blueprint for an Exciting Adventure will be in different places right now.

Blueprint Part Four: Aspiration A few of you will likely be flying along. Having landed today, got in touch with tomorrow, you will have come up with a clear strategy, plans and be running fast by now.

If you are one of these two or three individuals who are flying, skip to the bottom of this article for the final stretch target.

Some of you will have made good progress in your thinking and have some ideas about strategy but, be unclear about the steps that will actually move you forward.


If you fit into this group, a few points might help:

• Most of the time, the full path does not become clear until you are well on the road. So, just get moving with what you are reasonably sure will move you forward and not backwards.

• Unless you are about to make some irrecoverable decisions, you can always amend your strategy around the next corner.

• Remember that the goal merely gives direction, focus mainly on having fun along the way.

• Do all you can to invest positive emotion into the work you do towards your future (and your reflections throughout the day).

• Put a date in your diary to do a full review, say in 3 months’ time. • Focus on action, now!

Another group of you will be sat there with a long list of things you would like to have as part of your exciting adventure, but no clue how it could be possible to have all of those things in some dream job. If this sounds like you:

• You have a research job on your hands. Now you know the activities and work you’d love to do, now you have to go find it.

• Make a plan for your research. Who are you going to consult? What are you going to investigate on the internet? How can you find the answers to your questions?

• Set a deadline for laying out all of your practical options so you can move into decision mode.

Some of you will probably still be stuck with the muddle you are in, invested in the negative emotions of your today and unable to put any constructive thought, let alone emotion, into what you will be doing tomorrow. For you:

• Many situations are extremely difficult to break out of, especially when your livelihood depends on you continuing where you are right now.

• Get some help on this and listen to what they are saying – they could be right! • Work hard to not take it personally. Shed your emotional reaction to what is going on.

Easy for me to say I know, but I promise the more emotion you are investing in your current situation, the more entrenched you will become. Deal with it rationally, using logic and not emotion. Instead, shift the balance of your emotions over towards determination to do something, and into what awaits you in tomorrow.

• If you need a helping hand, ask me. Tell me what is going on for you and let me see if I can lend a hand in some way.

And I suspect, quite a few of you will have simply skimmed this series, pondered the exercises and carried on as you were before. Promising yourself to come back to it soon when you have more time. The dull undercurrent of dissatisfaction is probably not enough to motivate you into action.

Which is fine, if that is what you are content with. But if not:


• Make sure to schedule the time to give this the priority it deserves – it is your future after all.

• Find the level of stretch that will make it more interesting to you. Incrementation or evolutionary transformation is probably not going to cut it for you.

• If you’d like more help, let me know where you are right now. If enough of you get in touch, I may well run a free workshop to address some of the main questions you probably have in your mind.

And so finally, to all of you, including those who are already flying…

Being an Impressive Individual Whatever you think of impressing others, I think that everyone needs to impress themselves. If you can be an impressive person in your own eyes, it will empower you with the confidence to do your best and move towards your full potential.

If you cannot impress yourself, your confidence will be lower, and everyone will know that. You will be less influential than you could otherwise be.

In my book, when it comes to pursuing work as an exciting adventure, I’d like to encourage you to push yourself hard. Stretch those ambitions, those actions, and reach for the stars. Indeed:

I’d like to challenge you to become a role-model for others. And why not?

Yes, I know you’re probably modest, and undervalue your own achievements. But this would be worth revisiting for several reasons:

• The best way to learn is to teach. So, if you can lead by example, showing others how to stretch and achieve exciting working lives, you will need to have one too.

• Thinking about what it would take for you to become a role model will stretch your thinking and make your behavioural ideas practical and easy to demonstrate to others. That you demonstrate means you do, and if you do, you’ll probably get the results too.

• Don’t they deserve to be able to learn from you? Perhaps this is a goal that would allow you to contribute to others from the lessons you have learned, to give back.

• It will reinforce the behaviours/habits in your day-to-day activity (and maybe add little more discipline too).

• The more impressive you can become, the easier it will be to influence others. Not only will that help to speed up your results, it will also help others to learn ore too.

Now, you may feel that right now you are far from being able to role-model these things, so leave it as an aspiration, what if you were able to? How can you move rapidly towards that position?


And, I don’t want to suggest you tell anyone this is your aspiration either. That would be crass and unwise. Keep this one under your hat.

My vision for you is to keep returning to this Blueprint, and becoming a living, breathing example of an individual who is pursuing work as an exciting adventure:

• Impressive: Setting out to smash it. Not settling for an okay next position, or slight shift in your career. Becoming remarkable as the months and years fly by.

• Consistent: Day-in, day-out, keeping the faith and driving towards your goal. Making sure you are applying the desired behaviours/habits religiously. Getting known for your tenacity and focus.

• Obsessive: Testing the limits of healthy attention without sacrificing or endangering your exciting personal life. Able to stoke up the emotions, raise the enthusiasm and become zealous in your determination to enjoy the journey towards your goals.

• Integrity: Living true to your values and becoming a character that people can depend on.

• Inspirational: Yes, come on, inspiring those around you. Setting the standard, helping and thriving together.

That’s it.

Now it is over to you to do with it what you will.

For now, my work is over. And, if you want any help, you know where I am.


Your Next Step

If you’ve found this useful, act on it. Then learn the most powerful lessons Colin shares with his executive level coaching clients:

Extraordinary Lessons in Influence

The most important lessons delivered in the minimum amount of time, that will make all the different to your

influence and your results.

https://www.learntoinfluence.com/breakthrough-influence-lessons/

https://www.learntoinfluence.com/breakthrough-influence-lessons/

exciting if they empower themselves with greater influencemaking friends with your today as you will...

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